


Talk of Time

by Chromat1cs



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Does a conversation count as foreplay?, F/F, Moms (TM), Oral Sex, Reminiscing, inevitable lesbian shenanigans, the Greek Chorus likes to watch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromat1cs/pseuds/Chromat1cs
Summary: After the first several escapes, after the truth has crept out from its abyss, there is a meeting at an unseen place slotted in somewhere betwixt the immortal and the damned.
Relationships: Nyx/Persephone (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	Talk of Time

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers ahead for some of the lore that comes to light after a couple successful escapes!**
> 
> This isn’t anything groundbreaking, I just wanted a Greek chorus being sorta voyeuristic and Persephone getting to be a pillow princess. I’m weak for hot moms being soft, stoked to have you here if you are too B)

…

_Set, o sun, to bring in comfort, dark;_ _  
_ _And to the southward pathway, mark!_ _  
_ _The gentle landing of a feathered step_ _  
_ _That may be breath, or other purpose kept—_ _  
_ _The mother Nyx, her surrogacy through_ _  
_ _Once Zagreus saw the goddess of verdure,_ _  
_ _Appears here far above the hall of dead_ _  
_ _To meet a different captive having fled._

_Hark! She comes in robes of blackest night,_ _  
_ _Enshrouded here in stars to hide her flight;_ _  
_ _Persephone there sits, her gaze upturn'd,_ _  
_ _Perhaps to seek the past she may have burned_ _  
_ _While all around her, sleeping sounds do zoon_ _  
_ _As though she's tended stillness as her boon._

…

Persephone almost does not see her arrive.

“I was unsure whether or not you would come,” she calls into the dark. The soft touch of a warm breeze sighs past, a ripple identical to the flutter of night’s fabric that warps several paces away near the hyacinth patch. A soft sound, something Persephone might have mistaken for the wind in the grass had she not been listening for its true identity, rustles in reply. Silence persists for several moments.

“As was I.”

Turning to meet the voice—at once a whisper soft as silk, a hiss of deepest secrecy, a confident declamation, a shout up to the uncaring heavens—Persephone meets Nyx’s gaze for the first time in a very, very long time. She smiles.

“It’s good to know your daughters don’t tell you everything.”

Nyx returns the look, a confounding thing on her face. She shines pale as starlight, radiating with it now that she’s revealed herself. Raven-black hair littered with the illusion of the firmament hangs long and proud down about her shoulders. The fabric of her dress looks as though it would pet her fingers with the sensation of pleasant dreams if Persephone were to reach out and touch it. She does not reach out.

“He looks so much like you now,” Nyx says softly, the warm gold of her eyes cataloguing Persephone with quick, graceful flicks. “I had almost forgotten.”

That defiant marvel, Zagreus, here and back again more times than Perseophone could ever stand to count lest she find herself missing him too sharply in the gaps between his arrivals; Persephone turns her face away, as though moving out of the moonlight would quit the dull ache of love she feels without fail when she thinks of him.

“I think he’s rather more like his father.” She looks up quickly, her eyes sharp at Nyx where she stands on the beaten pathway. “Don’t tell him I’ve said so.”

The whirr of the crickets ebbs pleasantly and an owl hoots in the distance. Persephone realizes Nyx is chuckling. “He would deny you until his blood runs blue.”

Persephone smirks to herself at the thought. She gestures at the open seat across from her—night herself might not need to sit, but Persephone is not through enjoying the vernal warmth and would like a companion. “Join me,” she says simply. Something in her warms when Nyx bows her head kindly and takes the seat.

The koumiss stands out stark in the dusklight as Persephone tops off her shallow cup, sipping at it for the last hour to calm her nerves as the sun set and she waited to see whether or not Nyx would be here. She had been speaking aloud to the dark for seven days now— _I would like to see you again,_ was her refrain, _as old friends._

“Will you?” She asks Nyx, gesturing with the small jug. Nyx holds up one long, pale hand in polite deference.

“Unless you’ve stocked nectar,” Nyx says with good humor, “I’m afraid I’m unable.”

“This is...not far from nectar, in taste.” Persephone looks at the urn in her hand and cocks her head, trying to dredge up the taste of the gods’ indulgences deep in her memory. “It’s sharper. More real.”

“As anything outside of the underworld, isn’t it?”

Nyx is smiling when Persephone looks at her again. When did she get such wit?

They talk of time. The time between now and then, the time between the nights that Nyx has weathered since Zagreus began railing against his father, the time between each of his successes that weigh heavily on Persephone’s heart.

“And how is it,” Nyx asks, her voice genuine and her posture relaxed in the little red chair that she dwarfs with her regality, “the waiting?”

_I’m always thinking of you,_ Persephone almost says before she catches the words safely behind her teeth. She takes another sip of drink, two; “It’s waiting,” she says simply, and Nyx understands.

They continue talking of other things now, more varied things—memories that make them smile, memories that glitter with fond sadness, gossip of the gods above and below, and Persephone almost forgets that her heart wants to claw its way out of her chest and splay out before Nyx like an offering until Nyx breaks a comfortable silence with a soft sigh.

“Why did you call me here, Persephone?”

She shivers when Nyx says her name—the sound of it for the first time in far too long to track, pitched in that hothouse murmur and curled about each syllable as though cradling it close, makes Persephone woozy with memory. Memory, or the koumiss. Persephone pushes her glass away with a gentle prod, its stone bottom scraping softly against the table top.

“I wanted to thank you,” she says to her hands, “in person.”

_Is that why your pulse is racing,_ something deep inside her jeers, _or why you can’t stand to look at her for longer than a moment at a time?_

In Persephone’s periphery, Nyx tips her head genially. Her face is open with patience. “Whatever for?”

Persephone looks up, meets her stare, tightens her back teeth. “For saving my son.”

Nyx’s face moves through confusion to surprise in a fluid slip as graceful as the belt of stars streaming overhead in the sky like a reverse of the Styx. “I could not have simply let him be,” she insists, “I could feel his determination even before he came back.”

“After I left,” Persephone murmurs without quite meaning to. Nyx reaches across the table and takes one of Persephone’s hands in hers—Persephone flinches when a warm touch meets her rather than the cool grip of midnight.

“You did what was best for you, with what you knew as the truth.”

Persephone knits her brow. She does not let go of Nyx’s hand. “But I was wrong.”

“You have mortal imperfection written through your soul.” Coming from anyone besides Nyx, this would feel insulting. Persephone’s heart flexes with the understanding that meets her in Nyx’s unwavering gaze, twin moons in the dark. “You are bound to make mistakes.”

“Wouldn’t everything be easier,” Persephone hums, “if you’d kept the prophesying knack to yourself?”

Nyx laughs again, a fuller sound this time that brings with it the twinkling of the constellations and the music of the spheres spinning on far, far above. Persephone’s insides twist sweetly when she finds herself melting gently along with the sound.

“Indeed!” Nyx is still holding her hand. “Though I fear I lack my children’s ability to keep their noses out of the problems they unveil.”

“I like it,” Persephone blurts before she can stop it. Nyx’s eyes spark with intrigue; Persephone swallows. “I like that you care. It makes everything feel...possible.”

“Everything,” Nyx repeats, not a question but a gentle reassurance as though Persephone has asked Nyx what dark encompasses when it falls— _Everything._

Persephone stands up, her hand still clasped with Nyx’s. “Would you like to come inside?”

Nyx looks over her shoulder at the little cottage behind them, one window aglow with the candle Persephone always leaves burning at night. When Nyx turns her face back to Persephone, she rises as well. “I would be honored.”

…

_There, the mothers two sat by the coast_ _  
_ _Unfolding thoughts and thanks for acting host_ _  
_ _To one son’s death and life as both they plied_ _  
_ _To keep his hero’s heart alight with pride._

_The vestiges of old affection woke_ _  
_ _Within the demigoddess as they spoke;_ _  
_ _For hearts are fickle, mortal nonetheless,_ _  
_ _And memory’s tender touch is wont to press._

_‘Within,’ Persephone eventually bade,_ _  
_ _To see if night herself she might persuade_ _  
_ _To share a moment’s pause, as once they had_ _  
_ _In Hades’ halls in secret and unclad._ _  
_ _As Nyx agreed and followed Kore’s lead,_ _  
_ _The demigoddess humming soft with need,_ _  
_ _The house enveloped both of them at last_ _  
_ _And gave them shelter missing from their past._

…

“You keep a beautiful home,” Nyx murmurs when Persephone shuts the door behind her. The house is a little knothole of a thing nestled into this fold of reality halfway between being and un-being, and it is currently aclutter with several long days’-worth of puttering. It is a crumb compared to the soaring halls of the underworld—Persephone manages not to laugh.

“I like it here,” she says gently. She weighs whether or not to reveal the rest of the thought, and all it takes to convince her to open with it is Nyx turning to face her with nothing but acceptance writ through her posture; “I’ve been wanting you to visit for a long time.”

Nyx takes a step closer, and Persephone’s heart presses at her throat. Their privacy here, not some secret tryst or a hurried mistake but something slow and steady and purposeful, makes the moment feel as though Persephone has yanked her thread out of the Fates’ very fingers and begun sprinting along the coast with it flying proudly above her head. Persephone does not blink.

“I’ve been close to you every night you’ve spent here,” Nyx whispers. She lays a hand on Persephone’s waist, a gentle request—“all you had to do was ask.”

“It took eight days of asking to have you here now,” Persephone teases lightly, her soft smile the invitation for which Nyx has asked. Nyx’s own smile, wine-dark, is positively enchanting.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, my queen.”

Persephone’s marrow sears to hear her old title in Nyx’s mouth and surges forward to claim it in a hungry kiss.

Nyx holds her as though she had never forgotten how Persephone’s body fit into her arms. The seasons come and gone, the years passed and forgotten, the lifetimes that stretched between Persephone’s arrival underground as a terrified doe of a thing to now, fade away to naught but dust. The present is all that matters, and swathed in Nyx’s being is the only present that Persephone craves.

“I missed you,” she gasps against Nyx’s lips, her kisses as dizzying as watching the stars wheel about in their orbit. Nyx pulls her closer with an insistent touch, perfectly demanding in the way she holds Persephone, and makes a small sound of affirmation when their tongues slip together gently.

“The House is very cold without you,” Nyx murmurs. Persephone can’t help the burble of giddy release that leaves her in a chuckle, half giggle and half breathless hitch as Nyx slides a hand up to thumb softly at Persephone’s breast through her chiton.

“The House,” Persephone teases, “or your bed?”

Nyx pretends to take her time considering her answer as Persephone bites down on her lip and tries not to make terribly embarrassing sounds as Nyx continues coaxing Persephone’s nipple to stiffness. “Both,” she decides simply.

“Poor House,” Persephone breathes. She unclasps one shoulder of linen and lets her dress fall open, baring herself to Nyx for the first time in years. Time has threaded her skin with silvery marks and left it less supple, not as blushed as last Nyx saw Persephone naked, but that aureate gaze still flickers with blind, hot craving as she stares.

“Poor bed,” Nyx all but growls. She leans in without another pause and, fixing her mouth to Persephone’s collar bone, leads them both down onto Persephone’s woolen bed with a pleasant wooden creak.

Persephone can hardly recall the last time she felt so fulfilled—Zagreus’ appearances have been fulfillments of her heart, to be sure, but Persephone has tended to forget lately that her body deserves to be tended just as intently as she grows her gardens outside. If Persephone is her own sort of garden then, Nyx may very well hold Persephone’s title as goddess of all that grows.

_“Nyx,”_ she pants, arching so deeply into Nyx's touch that her forehead nearly touches her bolster. Nyx hums encouragingly against Persephone's quim, her mouth at work at its crest and her fingers petting softly at the pleat of its opening. Stars dance behind Persephone's eyes, and she cannot tell whether they come from Nyx's unbound hair or if the roof has dissolved with the perfection of her pleasure. 

_How did you learn to do that?_ Persephone had asked her once, hushed and carefully wresting her clothes back into place after their first falling-together in a shadowed corner of the House. 

_I have existed for a long time,_ Nyx replied—the casual way she wiped her mouth and licked along her middle and index finger had nearly made Persephone ready for another toss in an instant. _I inevitably watch the mortals as they go, and they discover much about their bodies fairly quickly._

_When can we do that again?_ Persephone felt foolish, needy for asking, but she couldn't have helped it. Thankfully, Nyx smiled. 

_Whenever you would like, my queen._

Persephone reaches down and grips a fistful of Nyx's hair, a gentle tug just sharp enough to encourage, as she squeezes her eyes shut and opens her mouth in a soundless cry. One scraping breath, two, three; "Nyx—!" she pleads. Her knees tremble. 

Nyx pulls her mouth away from Persephone, her fingers still working carefully, expertly. "I am always here," she promises. 

Climax takes Persephone as it never has before. A riptide of ecstasy tears through her body, shuddering up from her depths as though Tartarus were seated in her belly and forced itself inside-out with the bliss of Nyx's attention once more. Nyx sees her through it tenderly, steadily, touching her and kissing her under Persephone is a tangle of twitching and euphoric incoherence. 

"Now you," Persephone manages to pant. Nyx chuckles, a sound like the soft flickering dance of the candle on the windowsill, and shakes her head. 

"That can wait," she whispers. She kisses the inside of Persephone's knee before crawling up the bed—true to its appearance, her dress slides along Persephone's bare skin like the best sort of dream. "We have plenty of time, my queen. You should rest."

"I've got plenty of rest," Persephone insists, but drowsiness begins leaching through her true to her nature. _Damn my mortal parts._

"Rest," Nyx repeats. She lays a hand over Persephone's heart and kisses her softly, a slow press of a thing that fills Persephone's spirit to bursting. "I'll be here all the while."

…

_Éa, éa, disparate hearts do sleep_ _  
_ _Now, one at watch, the other sunk in dreams_ _  
_ _That weave for her the stories she has missed_ _  
_ _Of touch, of breath, of sharing deepest kiss;_ _  
_ _But she shall find on waking that the night_ _  
_ _Just passed was one far worthy of the might_ _  
_ _Alive inside her soul, the present starts!_ _  
_ _For Nyx was here, has touched, has claimed her heart._

_Persephone in secret so shall keep her hours_ _  
_ _Here on the coast, attending to her flowers_   
_Until night falls, and consort's love can bring_ _  
_ Fair Nyx's warmth, on Eros' fluted wing. 


End file.
